No Inscriptions Were Visible, But The
Annexed Figures Were Drawn Between The Animals.
These were the only
drawings or inscriptions that I met with in the mountains to the E. of
the convent, although I passed many flat rocks, well suited to them.
I
am inclined to think that the inscriptions have been written by pilgrims
proceeding to Mount Sinai, and that the drawings of animals which are
executed in a ruder manner and with a less steady hand, are the work of
the shepherds of the peninsula. We find only those animals represented
which are natives of these mountains, such as camels, mountain and other
goats, and gazelles, but principally the two first,[It may be worthy of
mention in this place that among the innumerable paintings and
sculptures in the temples, and tombs of Egypt, I never met with a single
instance of the representation of a camel. At Thebes, in the highest of
the tombs on the side of the Djebel Habou, called Abd el Gorne, which
has not, I believe, been noticed by former travellers, or even by the
French in their great work, I found all the domestic animals of the
Egyptians represented together in one large painting upon a wall,
forming the most elaborate and interesting work of the kind, which I saw
in Egypt. A shepherd conducts the whole herd into the presence of his
master, who inspects them, while a slave is noting them down. Yet even
here I looked in vain for the camel.] and I had occasion to remark in
the course of my tour, that the present Bedouins of Sinai are in the
habit of carving the figures of goats upon rocks and in grottos.
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